B A C K G R O U N D

/ BACKGROUND RESEARCH

WASTE IN FASHION

Clothing

contributes to

half a million tonnes of microfibre pollution into the ocean, equivalent to 50bn plastic bottles.

Fashion Waste, Pollution and The Environment – With each second that passes by, a truck worth of fabric is piled into a landfill burned. The average dump truck is .76 cubic metres in diameter. A commercial dump truck holds 10-14 cubic yards of dirt. That means, 7.6 to 10 cubic meters of fabric is being dumped/burned every second, contributing to the 1.2bn in greenhouse gas emissions the fashion industry releases each year during manufacturing. Clothing contributes to half a million tonnes of microfibre pollution into the ocean, equivalent to 50bn plastic bottles.

Fashion isn’t not only impacting the ocean, either. This year, it was reported that Burberry burned £40m worth of merchandise in one of the biggest stories surrounding luxury fashion in 2018. The brand wanted to retain brand exclusivity while keeping stock scarcity high.

The problem with this is the negative impact this has had on the brand and environment. This has left Burberry reconsidering their garment waste management strategy.

Due to social influencer marketing, the fashion industry has changed dramatically. Most importantly, they have created a new market. Social influencers recognised the power of social media and the impact it could have on the fashion industry.

This has left brands in a bit of a pickle, having to keep up with the latest influencer, their style, and how the brand can utilise them to grow their following. This is due to the customer (71% of them), is more likely to buy based on an online recommendation.

BRANDS THAT ARE DESIGNING OUT WASTE

01.

Bethany Williams believes that social and environmental issues go hand in hand and through exploring the connection between these issues we may find innovative design solutions to sustainability. Each garment is 100% sustainable and made in the UK, even down to the buttons which are hand crafted in the Lake District. She has collaborated with TIH Models, a new modelling agency supporting youth in London affected by homelessness, casting Kris McAllister and Mustapha, both homeless and unemployed in London, for the collection Women of Change.

“For my most recent collection ‘Women of Change’ I have worked alongside San Patrignano in Rimini, Italy – an education and rehabilitation programme for people with drug and alcohol dependency that teaches traditional Italian craft and fosters a sense of community. Together we developed hand-woven textiles from recycled packaging materials found within the workshop.”

ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS

OF FAST FASHION

Tannery wastewater being pumped from a factory straight into the street, in Cairo’s Ain el-Sirra district

Vibrant colours, prints and fabric finishes are appealing features of fashion garments, but many of these are achieved with toxic chemicals. Textile dyeing is the second largest polluter of clean water globally, after agriculture. Greenpeace’s recent Detox campaign has been instrumental in pressuring fashion brands to take action to remove toxic chemicals from their supply chains, after it tested a number of brands’ products and confirmed the presence of hazardous chemicals. Many of these are banned or strictly regulated in various countries because they are toxic, bio-accumulative, disruptive to hormones and carcinogenic.

A barrel full of chemical waste lies where a textile factory was demolished

The devastating impact of toxic chemical use in agriculture, for growing cotton, was shown in a documentary called The True Cost, including the death of a US cotton farmer from a brain tumour, and serious birth defects in Indian cotton farmers’ children. Cotton growing requires high levels of water and pesticides to prevent crop failure, which can be problematic in developing countries that may lack sufficient investment and be at risk of drought. Most cotton grown worldwide is genetically modified to be resistant to the bollworm pest, thereby improving yield and reducing pesticide use. But this can also lead to problems further down the line, such as the emergence of “superweeds” which are resistant to standard pesticides. They often need to be treated with more toxic pesticides that are harmful to livestock and humans.

Part of a Greenpeace campaign for top fashion brands to remove toxic chemicals from their supply chains in Indonesia

Increasing disposable income levels over recent generations means there is less need to “make do and mend”, as it’s often cheaper and more convenient to buy new than have an item repaired. The rise of supermarket fashion that can be purchased alongside the weekly shop and the regular occurrence of seasonal sales make clothing seem “disposable” in a way it didn’t used to be. There is interest in moving towards a more circular model of textile production which reuses materials wherever possible, yet current recycling rates for textiles are very low. Despite a long-established national network of charity shops and increasing numbers of in-store recycling points in UK high-street stores, three-quarters of Britons throw away unwanted clothing, rather than donating or recycling it.

ZARA AND H&M BACK IN-STORE RECYCLING

TO TACKLE THROWAWAY CULTURE

Brands including H&M and Zara are stepping up in-store recycling initiatives, which allow customers to drop off unwanted items in fashion “bins” in high-street shops. While companies such as Adidas and luxury group Kering – the owner of brands including Alexander McQueen and Gucci – agreed at this month’s Copenhagen Fashion Summit to set 2020 targets for garment collection. The idea is to boost textile collection and recycling rates, and reduce needless waste to landfill. But if the same companies continue to drive high levels of consumption – some are launching up to 24 new clothing collections every year – can in-store recycling be more than a tokenistic gesture? H&M says it has collected about 40,000 tonnes of garments since launching its scheme in 2013, which it passes on to its partner recycling plant in Berlin. What can’t be reused is downcycled into products like cleaning cloths or insulation fibres.

Nike too has a long-running collection scheme, Reuse-A-Shoe, which sees 1.5m worn out trainers per year collected in store or by post and sent to facilities in Tennessee and Belgium to be ground up into material for sports and playground surfaces. But corporate enthusiasm for such schemes appears to be growing: H&M wants to increase collection to 25,000 tonnes a year by 2020, says Catarina Midby, its UK and Ireland sustainability manager. Tactics include advertising campaigns, vouchers and educating employees who can inform customers about the scheme. Zara, which started installing collection bins during 2016 in stores across Europe, says it will soon have completed installation in all of its stores across China. The Inditex brand is donating the collected clothing to charities including the Red Cross.

FASHION INDUSTRIES STATISTICS

The global apparel market is valued at 3 trillion dollars, 3,000 billion, and accounts for 2% of the world’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Almost 75% of the world’s fashion market is concentrated in Europe, USA, China and Japan.
Second to oil, the clothing and textile industry is the largest polluter in the world.
United Nations Climate Change News states, The fashion industry contributes 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions due to its long supply chains and energy intensive production.
The US is the largest importer of garments in the world; nearly 40% of apparel products sold in the US are imported from China.

WASTE

Nearly 20% of global waste water is produced by the fashion industry.
Cotton farming is responsible for 24% of insecticides and 11% of pesticides, despite using only 3% of the world’s arable land.
20,000 liters is the amount of water needed to produce one kilogram of cotton; equivalent to a single t-shirt and pair of jeans.
It takes more than 5,000 gallons of water to manufacture just a T-shirt and a pair of jeans.
Textile industry is one of the top 3 water wasting industry in China, discharging over 2.5 billion tons of wastewater every year.
NPR reports, from the Environmental Protection Agency, that 15.1 million tons of textile waste was generated in 2013, of which 12.8 million tons were discarded.
About 15% of fabric intended for clothing ends up on the cutting room floor. This waste rate has been tolerated
industry-wide for decades.
According to Christina Dean, Redress, waste generated in China is not known, with estimates that China will soon make 50% of the world’s clothing – the indications for textile waste there are mind-blowing. Daily in Hong Kong, there are 253 tons of textiles sent to landfill.

RECYCLE

Consumers throw away shoes and clothing [versus recycle], an average of 70 pounds per person, annually.
A few communities have textile recycling programs, about 85% of this waste goes to landfills where it occupies about 5% of landfill space and the amount is growing.
Up to 95% of the textiles that are land filled each year could be recycled.
Landfill space is expensive and hard to find.
Using recycled cotton saves 20,000 liters of water per kilogram of cotton, a water-intensive crop.

USED CLOTHINGS

The U. S. is the largest exporter of second hand clothing. It exports over a billion pounds of used clothing every year.
Over 70% of the world’s population use second hand clothes.
Consumers in the United Kingdom have an estimated $46.7 billion worth of unworn clothes in their closets.

ISSUES N FASHION

FAIR TRADE

As topics like women’s equality and feminism simmer across blogs and the popular zeitgeist, workers’ rights are often ignored. Fact is, 80 per cent of the world’s garment workers are women, who must contend with low wages, unstable employment and Rana Plaza-like conditions daily.

Fair Trade is not only an issue which plagues the fashion industry as a whole but also other industries and economies. Low wages are prominent and it is definitely an issue to be bothered and explored further.

WASTE

Nearly 20% of global wastewater is produced by the fashion industry. Cotton farming is responsible for 24% of insecticides and 11% of pesticides, despite using only 3% of the world’s arable land. 20,000 litres is the amount of water needed to produce one kilogram of cotton; equivalent to a single t-shirt and pair of jeans. It takes more than 5,000 gallons of water to manufacture just a T-shirt and a pair of jeans. Textile industry is one of the top 3 water wasting industry in China, discharging over 2.5 billion tons of wastewater every year.

INCLUSIVITY AND ADAPTIVITY

Many brands and beauty products are starting to add in more shades and people of colour into their advertising campaigns and also products catering to plus-sized people. With inclusivity in trend, more and more brands are riding on the bandwagon to produce more inclusive concepts and advertising strategies for their brand at large.

CONCLUSION

Moving forward, in order to address this alarming issue of waste and environmental pollution caused by the fashion industry itself, Kykloss seeks to disrupt the economy and also to give our used garments a new lease of life.

Kykloss aims to not only alleviate environmental issues but also help society as a whole.